1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to video communications, and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus of changing a communication network or a communication device for video communication during video communications in a user equipment (UE).
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with the rapid development of the information society, multi-purpose terminals including various functions in addition to merely transmitting voice, have been developed. Accordingly, a user equipment (UE) having both a function of transmitting/receiving image data and a function of transmitting/receiving voice has been developed. A representative multi-purpose UE is a camera phone.
When a user desires to take and keep a photograph of a certain scene or a subject required for business use, the camera phone allows the user to photograph and store a desired scene or subject in its internal memory. Additionally, the camera phone allows the photographed image to be wirelessly transmitted to another UE, and to be output onto the screen of a personal computer (PC) when the camera phone is connected to the PC. Recently, a technology that enables the user to photograph and transmit his/her own image in real-time to a counterpart through a wireless network to perform video communication has been developed and commercialized.
Generally, a base station (BS) in a wide-area mobile communication network has an advantage in that it has a wide service coverage from several kilometers to several tens of kilometers, and has a disadvantage in that the service fee is high. In contrast, an access point (AP) of a wireless local area network (WLAN) as described in the IEEE 802.11 protocol has advantages in that it provides a data rate higher than that of the wide-area mobile communication network, and low service fees. However, the WLAN has a disadvantage in that the service coverage of an AP is limited to several tens of meters.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a method for performing video communication through the most appropriate communication network depending on the location of a UE when video communication is performed using the UE.